This is a social, historical process, in the sense that the talk generates its own context and continuity, so that the knowledge that is created carries with it echoes of the conversations in which it was generated (ibid.).
Any definition of scaffolding, therefore, needs to incorporate the view that this kind of interaction is a locus for learning opportunities, and is not simply a way of modelling, supporting, or practising interaction. Such a view is consistent with the claims made by researchers of first language development to the effect that conversational interaction, rather than being the result of language learning, is a precondition for it: ‘One [first] learns how to do conversation, one learns how to interact verbally, and out of this interaction syntactic structures are developed’ (Hatch 1978: 404). Scaffolding, in short, is the process whereby, with the help of a ‘better other’, ‘one learns how to do conversation’.
Questions for discussion
1. How have you heard the term ‘scaffolding’ used? Why do you think, as a metaphor for teaching, it has become so popular?
2. What is different about scaffolding, compared to more traditional forms of teacher-learner interaction?
3. The features of scaffolding identified by Wood, Bruner and Ross (such as ‘recruiting interest in the task’) pertain to teaching in general, and not language teaching specifically. In what ways could they be realized in the language classroom?
4. Bruner characterized scaffolding as ‘the steps taken to reduce the degree of freedom in carrying out some tasks’. However, allowing learners freedom (to express their own meanings, to communicate fluently, etc.) is a fundamental premise of communicative language teaching. Is there a tension between the need for freedom and the need (at times) to reduce this freedom? Put another way, is scaffolding always appropriate?
5. In the extract (from Johnson 1995) in which the teacher and the learner discuss the movie Big, there is no overt correction of the learner’s errors. Is there a place for error correction within scaffolding, or is this a contradiction in terms?
6. The importance of ‘semi-ritualized’ activities is mentioned. What does this mean? What other kinds of classroom activities might have a ritualized quality, and, by extension, might promote scaffolding?
7. ‘The knowledge that is created carries with it echoes of the conversations in which it was generated’ (Mercer 1995: 84). What does this mean exactly, and how might it apply to the learning of grammar or vocabulary?
8. If ‘doing conversation’ is a precondition for language learning, rather than a result of language learning, what implications might this have on the way that courses and lessons are structured?
References
Ellis, R. (2003) Task-based Language Learning and Teaching, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Foley, J. (1994) ‘Key concepts in ELT: Scaffolding’. ELT Journal, 48, 1, 101.
Gibbons, P. (2002) Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching Second Language Learners in the Mainstream Classroom, Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Hatch, E. (1978) ‘Discourse analysis and second language acquisition’, in Hatch, E. (ed.), Second Language Acquisition: A Book of Readings, Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Johnson, K. (1995) Understanding Communication in Second Language Classrooms, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mercer, N. (1995) The Guided Construction of Knowledge: Talk amongst Teachers and Learners, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
van Lier, L. (1996) Interaction in the Language Curriculum, London: Longman.
Wood, D., Bruner, J. and Ross, G. (1976) ‘The role of tutoring in problem-solving’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17, 89.
To see how readers responded to this topic online, go to
http://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/s-is-for-scaffolding/
12 Is there a best method?
I’m regularly asked: ‘What’s the best (or the latest) method?’ This, despite claims that language teaching methods are ‘dead’ (Allwright 1991; Prabhu 1990) or that we are now in a ‘post-method era’ (Kumaravadivelu 2003). Nonetheless, it seems that the ‘method concept’ (Stern 1983) has proven remarkably resilient. For example, Bell (2007: 143), who interviewed a number of teachers on the subject, concluded: ‘Methods, however the term is defined, are not dead. Teachers seem to be aware of both the usefulness of methods and the need to go beyond them.’
I suspect that the question ‘What’s the latest method?’ is motivated by one of three possible agendas: a (reasonable) fear on the part of many teachers of being ‘left behind’; a frustration at the lack of effectiveness of whatever is the current ‘method’; and, at the same time, a (perhaps implicit) belief in the power of ‘magic bullets’, that is, magical solutions to often intractable problems. In the same way that we pin our hopes on someone discovering a cure for the common cold, we secretly long for a foolproof method for teaching second languages! Unsurprisingly, this longing is often intertwined with an uncritical faith in the power of technology, and the assumption that whatever new method is on its way, it will arrive on the back of some technological breakthrough.
Hence, it’s often the case that many branded language courses (especially those that utilize digital media) exploit the modern, scientific and technical associations of the term ‘method’, and use the word conspicuously in their marketing, e.g. ‘scientifically-proven method’ (Pimsleur), ‘the core of our method’s effectiveness’ (Rosetta Stone), ‘The Maurer Method, un novedoso curso para aprender ingles …’ etc.
Not only are methods promoted because they are efficient, effective and inherently ‘modern’ but so too are the technologies that deliver them. I own a set of long-playing records for the learning of English, produced in 1965, which advertises itself as ‘A New Tested Method that simplifies language study, enables anyone to learn ENGLISH quickly and easily’. Compare that with this website blurb (Babbel 2012):
The comprehensive learning system combines effective education methods with state-of-the-art technology. Interactive online courses will improve your grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation skills in no time. You'll make fast progress and have fun doing it.
Note how both examples of promotional copy, although written nearly 50 years apart, emphasize speed (‘learn … quickly’, ‘fast progress’) and innovation (‘new’, ‘state-of-the-art’). In the same breathless fashion, innovation is contrasted with tradition in this claim from another website (Unite 2012): ‘Using mobile technology, Europe’s flagship technology, to enhance the learning experience and to break down the school walls, will pave the way for a major shift of the traditional learning paradigm.’
In the end, all this hype might simply reflect our ongoing love affair with ‘the new’. Not surprisingly, the adjectives that most frequently collocate with ‘method’ (according to the British National Corpus) are new, scientific, best, effective and simple, in that order. The love of the new, of course, is a defining attribute of modernism, with its narrative of unrelenting progress, propelled by technological innovation. And methods are a very modernist phenomenon, each method being a more evolved and a more innovative improvement on its predecessor. To be of any value at all a method must be new.
Yet there is nothing new in language learning. People learn languages much the same as they always have: only the contexts have changed. As Kelly (1969: 396) long ago demonstrated, the history of methods might more accurately be characterized, not as a linear progression, but as cyclical: ‘Old approaches return, but as their social and intellectual context are changed, they seem entirely new.’
Kelly’s reference to the ‘social and intellectual context’ reminds us that the history of methods and the cult of the new have a strong ideological component. Neil Postman (1984: 86) pointed out that ‘only those who know nothing of the history of technology believe that a technology is entirely neutral’, and the same might be said of methods. Just as the concept of method itself is a modernist construct, individual methods are not ‘disinterested’: t
hey enshrine and perpetuate the values of their time and place. The way that the methodological pendulum has swung, first to, and then from, the classroom use of translation, or to and from a focus on form, or rules, or discovery learning, or learner autonomy, reflects broader social, cultural and political agendas. As an example, the Direct Method, with its rejection of any role for the learners’ L1, reinforced a ‘discourse of colonialism’ (Pennycook 1998) that privileged the native-speaker teacher along with the ELT academic and publishing ‘centre’. Communicative language teaching, on the other hand, with its emphasis on functional language use, task performance, and communication skills, fits neatly into a utilitarian, market-driven economic model in which international trade, consumerism and leisure are priorities.
So, what ideological winds presently buffet current language teaching practices? And what continues to fuel the hunger for methods?
A major reason why the notion of method persists, I would argue, is that methods are now embodied in coursebooks. It used to be that coursebooks were reflections of the methods that spawned them. Now the coursebook is the method. (Interestingly, in the Spanish-speaking world, the concept of coursebook and method are conflated into the one term: método.) Akbari (2008: 647) suggests that, in EFL contexts such as Iran, the conflation of coursebook and method is the result of expedience:
The concept of method has not been replaced by the concept of post-method but rather by an era of textbook-defined practice. What the majority of teachers teach and how they teach ... [is] now determined by textbooks.
Expedience, partly, but also ubiquity. As Kumaravadivelu (2003: 255) observes: ‘Because of the global spread of English, ELT has become a global industry with high economic stakes, and textbook production has become one of the engines that drives the industry. It is hardly surprising that the world market is flooded with textbooks not grounded in [the] local sociocultural milieu.’ The method concept helps feed this demand: as Canagarajah (2012: 267) notes, ‘new methods mean the publication of new textbooks.’ And, one might add, new methods mean the marketing of new technologies. In this wise, the coursebook-as-method perfectly reflects the neoliberal, market-led, globalized world we now inhabit.
Questions for discussion
1. ‘Teachers seem to be aware of both the usefulness of methods and the need to go beyond them.’ Is this true in your context, do you think?
2. Some writers on methodology, such as Diane Larsen-Freeman (2011), argue that methods have an important role in teacher development, offering frameworks for experimentation and development. Do you agree?
3. To what extent are methods and technology interlinked? Can you think of specific ways that a technology and a method have mutually supported one another?
4. ‘People learn languages much the same as they always have.’ To what extent is this true?
5. If the history of methods is cyclical, what exactly is being recycled? Can you think of examples of techniques or procedures associated with past methods that have since been rehabilitated?
6. Do you agree that methods are ideological artefacts? If so, are the teachers who practise them necessarily aware of this? Should they be?
7. Do you agree that coursebooks have, in a sense, replaced the method concept? Is the current state of ELT coursebook-driven? If so, does this matter?
8. Nothing has been said about the role of teacher education in either the manufacture or promotion of methods. Do you think it plays a big part? And, if there are no ‘best methods’, how should teachers be trained?
References
Akbari, R. (2008) ‘Postmethod discourse and practice’, TESOL Quarterly, 42, 641.
Allwright, D. (1991) The Death of Method (Working Paper 10), The Exploratory Practice Centre, The University of Lancaster, UK.
Babbel (2012) http://www.babbel.com/, accessed Nov. 28 2012.
Bell, D.M. (2007) ‘Do teachers think that methods are dead?’, ELT Journal, 61, 135.
Canagarajah, A.S. (2012) ‘Teacher development in a global profession: An autoethnography’, TESOL Quarterly, 46 (2), 258.
Kelly, L.G. (1969) 25 Centuries of Language Teaching, Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003) Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for language teaching, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Larsen-Freeman, D. (2011) Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching (3rd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pennycook, A. (1998) English and the Discourses of Colonialism, London: Routledge.
Postman, N. (1985) Amusing Ourselves to Death, London: Methuen.
Prabhu, N.S. (1990) ‘There is no best method – why?’, TESOL Quarterly 24, 161.
Stern, H.H. (1983) Fundamental Concepts of Language Teaching, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Unite (2012) http://www.m-learning.org/case-studies/unite, accessed Nov. 28 2012.
To see how readers responded to this topic online, go to
http://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2010/11/28/m-is-for-method/
13 Is there anything wrong with rote learning?
In her controversial book about parenting, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Yale professor Amy Chua (2011) argues for the virtues of a Chinese-style educational model over a Western one, that is, one that prioritizes rigorous discipline and hard work rather than one that nurtures individuality, discovery and self-expression. Fundamental to Chua’s system is faith in the value of rote learning: Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America.’
But is rote learning really an East-West thing? In a recent book on the psychology of second language acquisition, Zoltán Dörnyei (2009: 302) draws six practical implications from current research findings. These include such ‘Western’ notions as the one that instruction ‘should be meaning focused and personally engaging’. But what about his claim that instructed SLA should incorporate an element of rote learning – a skill that he notes has been virtually ignored by applied linguists but which may be experiencing something of a comeback?
In an earlier work on the same subject, Dörnyei (2005) traces the history of rote learning and its relation to aptitude, starting with Carroll’s (1981: 105) claim that language aptitude comprises four constituent abilities, one of which is ‘rote learning ability’. This is ‘the ability to learn associations between sounds and meaning rapidly and efficiently, and to retain these associations.’
Subsequently, Peter Skehan (1998: 204), in his own model of language aptitude, retains an important role for memory, and notes that ‘memory, although traditionally associated with the acquisition of new information, is also concerned with retrieval, and with the way elements are stored … Fast-access memory systems … are what allow output to be orchestrated into fluent performance.’ It's not enough to know a lot of words, obviously. You have to be able to retrieve them, and at speed.
Skehan also reviews some case studies of exceptional language learners, and concludes: ‘To be exceptionally good at second or foreign language learning seems to require possession of unusual memory abilities, particularly the retention of verbal material. Exceptional L2 ability does not seem to rest upon unusual talent with rule-based aspects of the language, but rather on a capacity to absorb very large quantities of verbal material, in such a way that they become available for actual language use’ (1998: 221).
If memorizing large quantities of ‘verbal material’ is a characteristic of exceptional learners, can less exceptional learners be trained to get similar results?
Nearly a century ago, Harold Palmer (1921) believed fervently that they could. For Palmer memorization was at the heart of successful language learning, less as an aptitude than as a skill. Initially, this would take the form of ‘deliberate and conscious memorizing’. But there would come a point when ‘we must train ourselves to become spontaneous memorizers, and this can only be done in one way: we must acquire the capacity for retaining a chance phrase or compound which has fallen upon our ears in the course of con
versation or speech’ (1921: 92, emphasis added).
More recently, in a fascinating study of three Chinese learners of English, all of whom were rated as having achieved a high degree of communicative proficiency, Ding (2007) tracks the role that the rote learning of huge quantities of text played in their linguistic accomplishments. As the abstract reports, ‘The interviewees regarded text memorization and imitation as the most effective methods of learning English. They had been initially forced to use these methods but gradually came to appreciate them’ (ibid.: 271). What they memorized, as part of their conventional schooling, was entire coursebooks (New Concept English by Louis Alexander, in one case) as well as the screenplays of whole films: ‘Some of them said that when they speak English, lines from movies often naturally pop out, making others think of their English as natural and fluent.’ As one of the subjects reported, ‘through reciting those lessons, he gained mastery of many collocations, phrases, sentence patterns and other language points.’
This accords with my own experience of how the learning by heart of a number of poems in German helped me develop a ‘feel’ for the language when I studied it at secondary school. I can still recite the whole of Hölderlin’s Hälfte des Lebens, with its sombre last lines:
Die Mauern stehn
Sprachlos und kalt, im Winde
Klirren die Fahnen.
However, the chances that I would subsequently use – or even encounter – ‘rattling flags’ (klirrenden Fahnen) in natural contexts are fairly remote. This is the problem – it seems to me – of memorizing literature. If we assume that a core vocabulary of some 3,000 high-frequency words is the threshold that enables non-specialist language comprehension and production, literature alone is unlikely to provide that core – or, rather, it eventually will, but a great deal of low-frequency vocabulary may have been traversed in the meantime.
Big Questions in ELT Page 6
